


Kiss by the Book

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 02:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1180955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hallways seem to stretch like taffy, spindly-white and unending, but suddenly there’s a blink and a hiss, and the door is closing against John’s back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss by the Book

He has expectations. Some of them are as ephemeral as dreams he barely remembers on waking, but most aren’t. Most are half-formed plans, a hundred and one ways to react to _this_ stimulus or _that_ , what to do if _x_ suddenly becomes _alpha_. It’s utterly at odds with his laid-back appearance, his style of command confirmation for just about everyone he’s ever met—but John is a _good_ pilot. He isn’t just a flyboy who can’t escape the endless blue, frolicking through air currents the way seals dance in an out of the ocean, playfully graceful. No, John is a _pilot_ , one of the best though that fact is buried under a black mark and too many warnings to mean anything, anymore.

Being a pilot is all about anticipation, reaction, closing the gaps between supposition and reality with as few seconds as possible. That’s how their birds stay in the air, flirting with whatever artillery’s been launched at them. That’s how they avoid the soul-crushing grip of mud below them, still desperately trying to cling to their heels. Pilots, the best, are precision and knowledge, grace under fire. Regimented daredevils.

John’s always been good with keeping his expectations firmly in his head, where they belong; without Raleigh lights scattered all around him, he knows his perspective is too skewed. He jumps where others balk, slides where currents tell everyone else to stride. On the ground, he cannot find the rhythm, never quite seems to know the steps. So he hides, locked safe behind an expression of polite boredom and acceptance, not fighting the currents he can’t see, letting them take him where they will.

It’s probably not the best response. Fortunately, John’s ambitions begin and end with flying.

“Are you coming?”

The question isn’t hesitant, isn’t worried, but John knows the emotions are there just the same. He smiles—smirks—and nods, following behind a bustling figure he still isn’t sure why he wants. But he does. Oh, he does. 

As they walk, quiet where it’s never been before, John tries not to let his expectations grow too strident, swallowing up the silence in his mind. Normally this long march, when anticipation coils tight and thrumming into his belly, is when he plans out his attack, carefully considering what the best methods and formulas will be. Not now, though. Not following these rounded shoulders, the quick, flat step of a man who does not know his own body and does not care. Unlike every—any—time before, John knows his plans will be obliterated the moment doors hush behind them, gone in a flurry of movement and heat; it isn’t him who runs this show.

So instead of planning, he expects: 

It will be fast, and rough. Commands will bear the same inflection as in the labs, impersonal to the point of being callous, demanding and unyielding. They will punctuate their actions, offering unneeded direction until the sounds lose meaning, snare drum in the background tapping out the beat. Their bodies will not move mechanically, but not necessarily fluidly, either—first times are rarely graceful. The goal will be the rush of release, the acts themselves inconsequential, given—or taken—instead of shared. It will not be _bad_ , John knows, body quickening in reaction to his thoughts. He has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop from panting or, worse, giving voice to what is quickly changing from _expectation_ to _preference_.

It will be good. It will be _so_ good. A fitting culmination of weeks of watching and waiting, praying that Rodney would finally get a damned _clue_.

The hallways seem to stretch like taffy, spindly-white and unending, but suddenly there’s a blink and a hiss, and the door is closing against John’s back. He tenses. Rodney has yet to fill out the edges underneath his skin, still moving with that awkward, ungainly gait of a boy unused to longer arms and knobbier knees, and when he pushes into people, it’s always harder or faster than he means. John _wants_ that. He wants the shove and the take, heart pounding in anticipation of that amazing mind not focused on John but on _sex_

It never happens.

Rodney’s fingertips are too smooth from years of typing and gentle as they curl around the points of John’s jaw. It isn’t a hold, locking John still, or even an unusually subtle command. Rodney just leaves them there, lightly touching. His eyes are very blue, like Antarctica’s vaulting sky, and they flicker, faster and faster as if there are equations printed on John’s skin, offering Rodney primers and keys to mysteries only he can understand.

“Good,” Rodney murmurs, quietly satisfied by something he does not explain. “Yeah, okay.” And then he leans in to do the one thing John has never anticipated. Never thought to expect. It’s not that he doesn’t like it—he does—but he’d subconsciously assumed that for someone like Rodney it would be inefficient, a waste of valuable time better spent procuring orgasms. Something to do maybe after the initial need is taken care of, if it’s done at all.

He is utterly wrong.

Rodney’s hands cup his face, a whisper of warmth and skin, delicate in ways he has never been before. His mouth is almost tentative; lips moving over John’s as if he would be content to do only this for hours, mapping out each dip and sweeping rise without ever asking for more. Rodney’s eyes close, lashes fluttering as if the eyes within are rolling up in perfect bliss, like this is all he needs. He sighs as John begins to kiss him back, settling into this almost chaste exploration, humming softly. It’s a dance, the measure far more traditional than John has ever experienced and he lets himself fall into it, sinking into a kiss that feels like sun-warmed blankets on a rickety porch.

John has never kissed this long without tongue. Hell, he’s never kissed like this, ever. And he has never been harder.

When Rodney finally— _finally_ —allows John to open his mouth, the expected stab of a greedy tongue never follows. Instead, Rodney draws him out, sucking whenever John stops examining teeth and tonsils and the delicate ridges of the palate, resuming the dance when he does not. Their bodies are closer now, touching without leaning, and John _aches_ for full body contact. He wants that solid weight pressing against him, wants to destroy the illusion that he’s somehow orchestrating this. But those thoughts are fleeting as Rodney shows him something new, a different touch or taste, and John is lost again.

Time melts around them, sliding into oblivion like Dali’s watches, and Rodney never slows or falters. He kisses John like it’s all he’s been dreaming of for months and now that he has the chance he never wants to stop, or maybe allow John the chance to—

John tears his mouth away, skin already tingling with loss; his lips are swollen and he knows his face will be red from the scratch of Rodney’s cheeks. He tries to speak, only then aware that there are star-bursts blooming in front of his eyes, fractals of light swirling dizzily, and that he’s desperate for oxygen. It stops the words, cold and hard, in the back of his throat.

Rodney listens to him gasp and shakes his head, smiling indulgently. “No one ever thinks I have the patience to enjoy kissing,” he says.

The words are sad, full of an ache many years old, not at all smug like John’s expecting. That stills him. His objections die away unsaid and John lets himself _look_. When Rodney’s gaze slides away, uncertainty where there is normally none, he nods. 

“Come here,” John says. The bed is small and narrow, but there is more than enough room for Rodney to lay himself over John, offering heat and weight and solid boundaries to press against. They are still dressed, and John stops him when Rodney reaches for John’s shirt, fingers brushing fire against the hollow of John’s throat. “No.”

“But, I thought—”

“Nah,” John says again. He makes certain his smile is lazy enough to be indolent, a challenge wrapped around a promise. “We can do that later.”

Rodney goes utterly, frighteningly still. “Oh,” he says, and then he is diving down to kiss John again, too eager to wait for more formal permission, moaning softly into John’s mouth. John tries to laugh, but the kiss is too skilled, too much of _Rodney_ for John to do anything but lay there, kissing back, perfectly content.

Outside of the sky, he’s never been good with expectations. And he’s really okay with that.


End file.
